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Tunneling Microscopy and the NBS Topografiner
20 Years After (and Before) the Nobel Prize
William Gadzuk
Scientist Emeritus
Physics Laboratory, NIST
Friday, January 5, 2007
10:30 a.m., Green Auditorium
The original instrument that evolved into the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was an electron-tunneling based device conceived of and developed by NBS physicist Russell Young throughout the 1960s and early 70s. It measured vertical surface features at the sub 0.1 nm level. Upon publication of two fundamental papers, further development was suspended. Subsequently IBM developed a similar device that in addition achieved atomic resolution within the horizontal plane of the surface. Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. There exists a considerable intra-NBS folklore of intrigue, rumor, and/or misconceptions on issues, both scientific and administrative, on the connections between the NBS and IBM work, the Nobel process, and the 1986 prize in which the seminal role of Young’s work was prominently recognized. This talk reflects on this from the perspective of an observer who was both scientifically and humanistically involved with these issues.
Anyone outside NIST wishing to attend must be sponsored by a NIST employee and receive a visitor badge.
For more information, call Kum J. Ham at 301-975-4203. Colloquia are videotaped and available in the NIST Research Library.